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Yesterday, Google announced some big changes to its privacy policy that will let the company share information between different services.

Basically, instead of collecting information on Gmail and YouTube and Google+ and storing them in different silos, Google is now acting like a single Internet service. It's doing this to make its products better -- it can suggest search results based on what it knows you like, for instance. It can also help advertisers serve more accurate ads.

Signing out of Gmail (or any other Google service) when you're done using it.

Setting your browser up to clear cookies every time you close it.

This is what I do, and Google knows nothing about my ad preferences. I've been a Gmail user since 2004, and I signed up for Google+ at launch and regularly post there.

Really, the only weird part was that Google announced the changes at the EXACT time that Apple's earnings release crossed the wire, which made it seem like they were hoping to bury the news. Next time, they might be better served by making changes like this when the tech world isn't totally distracted with other news.